DETROIT (June 12, 2021) – Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy won an all-Chevrolet Corvette C8.R battle in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) category of the Detroit Sports Car Challenge on Saturday at Belle Isle Park. The duo in the No. 4 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R beat their Corvette Racing teammates Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor by 0.226 seconds in a non-points GTLM round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The two Corvettes made their lone pit stops of the race three laps apart, with Taylor pitting first after 42 minutes. Tandy then stopped with a 55-second lead, and the gap shrank back to a little more than a second with 25 minutes to go with Garcia trying to run down Milner to the end before and after a late-race caution period. Despite no points being available in GTLM, having Corvette Racing back on Belle Isle was of huge benefit on multiple fronts. For one, the Belle Isle appearance provided an opportunity for the hundreds of Chevrolet production team members who contributed in some way to the C8.R – and the road-going Corvette Stingray – to see Corvette Racing in-person. The reveal of the C8.R nearly 18 months ago was culmination of almost six years of work between all facets of engineers and designers from the Corvette production side and Corvette Racing. Second, it was Corvette Racing’s first IMSA event since March. With a busy stretch coming up in the IMSA championship over the next six weeks – plus the 24 Hours of Le Mans in mid-August – Belle Isle offered up a nice refresher on operations and procedures for the four drivers plus the crews and engineers. Saturday’s race also was the first street race for the Corvette C8.R, and the team also collected valuable data ahead of the Long Beach street circuit in September. Corvette Racing’s next event is the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen on Sunday, June 27 from Watkins Glen International. |
JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – SECOND IN GTLM: “It was a good experience. We had some new crew members over the wall for pit stops. We tried some new things on the car to help with reliability. There may to have been points but we learned a lot to take to Long Beach for another street course and of course Le Mans, which is the big one we are preparing for. So yes, a very good day for Corvette Racing.” |